


Meet the Troupe

by BubbleBtch



Series: Belief and Strings [3]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: All the memories burn away, Other, but grimm is reminded as his life progresses, but he is a baby so NO, but i still ship Brumm/Grimm, egg radiance, grimmchild is just grimm without all of the memories, right now all of grimm's affection is platonic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubbleBtch/pseuds/BubbleBtch
Summary: The Grimm Troupe is used to having to raise a young Grimm when the ritual fails midway. But where exactly did this egg come from, and why does the young Master love it so much?Oh well, they'll find out.Eventually.
Relationships: Brumm & Grimm (Hollow Knight), Divine & Grimm (Hollow Knight), Grimm & The Radiance (Hollow Knight), Grimmchild & The Radiance (Hollow Knight)
Series: Belief and Strings [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050776
Comments: 33
Kudos: 84





	1. Grimm POV

Grimm knew that he was supposed to be bigger. Knew that he was supposed to be tall and dashing and powerful. Madame Divine said so!

Grimm wanted to be bigger already, but Mister Brumm told him that he was going to have to wait and do it the slow way, that if he rushed then Grimm would burn up in his own flames and have to start over from even farther back.

Grimm didn’t want to start over! If he did he would forget everything again! It had been fun to meet Mister Brumm and Madame Divine again, but it was better to know them!

It was so troublesome to have to keep learning things that Grimm knew that he knew, but had forgotten!

Mister Brumm had spent a week teaching him how to do math, not because Grimm didn’t understand, but because Grimm kept getting frustrated when he just couldn’t remember what some of the symbols meant. It was like they were one the tip of his tongue, and he could never quite reach them.

It was . . . frustrating.

The only things that came easily were his powers. He knew exactly how to spit fire and how to invade the minds of sleeping bugs. He knew exactly how sweet a bug’s fear was, and how to let his eyes glow in the shadows to scare anyone who saw them.

He dreamed of the steady beat of the nightmare heart, and with every single beat another small little kernel of power flowed out of it and into Grimm.

He is big in his dreams. Big and powerful and handsome in a way that he knows he will never quite reach in the real world.

It had been that way for a very long time, ever since his heart had been ripped out of him. Ever since it had been too painful to carry his heart in his chest, and had needed to remove the pain from himself and take his memory away so as to numb the pain.

Grimm didn’t remember what it was exactly that had made him rip his own heart out, divide his power like this. To split his mind and his divinity like this, but he didn’t know if he ever wanted to remember.

It must have hurt to do, so whatever had caused him to do it must have hurt even more.

Grimm had long decided that he wasn’t going to try to remember that, and he had stood by that decision! At least he had until he had been sleeping one night, lulled by the sound of his own heart, when he had seen something bright.

It had been huge, and bright, and fluffy, and loud, and . . . familiar.

His heart had speed up for the first time that he currently remembered and Grimm had leapt forward, screaming loud enough to rival the bright thing as something from deep within his memory drove him forward to _catch_ the bright, screaming, familiar thing.

He caught it easily, and instead of squirming in his grip, it began to _dissolve_ in his hands.

Grimm had to act fast, did act fast, and did the only thing that he currently had any idea to do. The only thing that always stayed with him, no matter what.

He ripped the creature apart.

Gripping it’s divinity in one hand, the throbbing stuttering heart that represented it’s power, and burning the remains in his other, the sickly looking mass of fluff, wings and oozing blue and orange.

His own heart lashed out for the other creature’s smaller heart, dragging it from Grimm’s hand and hooking it up to it’s own being, forcing the smaller and weaker heart to beat in time with the large patched monster that it was.

Grimm paid it no mind, surely his own divinity knew what to do with this other creature’s freshly separated divinity.

He instead focused on the body that was melting like wax in his grip.

That wasn’t . . . that wasn’t familiar. It should be-, it should be turning to ash. That’s what he did?

_“I am not you Grimm, I am need different things than you!”_

_“You don’t need this! Sister, it’s making you sick! Look at you, look at what it’s doing-“_

_“SILENCE!”_

Grimm stumbled, the force of the remembered word making him stumble even in his own mind.

But the hint that his heart forced upon him did make him think, what works for him wouldn’t necessarily work for . . . her?

His sister?

With both hands free, Grimm clutched what was left of the melting mess in his hands, the bits that hit the floor dissolving from the nightmare. He wasn’t sure if he should be trying to save the parts that dripped from between his fingers, but as he watched the blue melt from the orange, he felt _satisfied_ to see it go.

More of the body melted, dripping from his fingers until all that was left was a small orange oval, large enough to fill on of his hands.

It glowed and pulsed in his hands, hardening from soft wax to hard shell.

It was an egg.

Grimm had never held an egg before. That he remembered.

The sight of it, so small and fragile in his hands made something bubble up in his throat.

Grimm began to laugh, uproariously and foolishly, gasping for breath as he laughed and laughed.

There was just something so funny about the idea of his sister being an egg.

A cosmic joke.

The laughter followed Grimm into the waking world, the chittering sound filling the small tent that Mister Brumm had set up for him to sleep in.

He was unsurprised to find his significantly smaller body curled around the large orange egg of his sister.


	2. Brumm POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brumm is a down to earth type of bug.  
> (There needs to be at least one.)

It was always harder to decide destinations when the Master was young.

The Grimm Troupe never really had a particular direction, always meandering where ever the road would take them, sometimes forgoing a road all together.

But the Master would always eventually stop and tell them to set up the tent.

And they would, no matter if the town they set up near was small, or if all that there was around was only a ruin.

They would set up the tent and the torches, signs dotted around to promote the show and direct them to the tent, and always there would be bugs that appeared and filled the seats to watch the show.

They were ghosts, more often than not. Not paying for the show in coin but in whatever power it was that kept the Master’s fire burning.

Those were always the Master’s best shows, when he would fly the highest and burn the hottest.

But, as he was now, it was Brumm’s duty to make sure that there would be a circus for him to inherit. And Brum, even after traveling in the Grimm Troupe for so long, was blind to such places that would feed the Master’s flame.

But while he might not be good for the Master’s source of power, but he was very good for the Master’s coffers.

While Brumm might not be drawn to places of ruin, that would welcome the flame to burn away the despair that had seeped into the land, he was able to find places with loose purse strings.

As was seen now with how the decorated bucket he had put in front of his feet was now half full of this area’s currency. These long legged, but eternally crouching bugs seemed to trade entirely in a specific kind of seed. Which seems an odd choice, but would work as an emergency meal.

Brumm finished the jaunty tune he had been playing and bowed to his audience. Brumm put as much flair as he could into the movement, nowhere near the amount that the Master could pull off, and repeated the short lines that he had repeated time and time again to drum up a little bit of a crowd back toward the much smaller tents that they had set up out on the outskirts of the town.

Brum always went into the towns that he found first.

Always.

He did so to make sure that the residents wouldn’t be aggressive to visiting bugs who would be considered strange and exotic to the area. There had been many times where they had been chased out of secluded areas who were frightened by the sudden appearance of the Grimm Troupe.

When the Master was fully grown, such times had been met with laughing and humor, his magic able to protect their fleeing backs as he took flight over the Grimm Troupe. His dramatic, long winged shape against the sky drawing both fear and ire as the rest of them escaped without issue.

But with the Master so small and young, they had to be much more cautious. The Grimm Troupe never unpacked without the ok from Brumm, and he always went alone into towns. These were the rules that were always in place when Brumm took the ill-fitted mantel of leader.

He was the least threatening of the troupe members and the most mobile. Able to take a great many hits to his shell and run quite quickly.

The Master always liked to joke that Brumm had traded a sensitive soul for a stronger body, for what he lacked in magic he made up with shell.

As Brumm made his way back to the little camp that had been set up, he could hear the young Master’s cooing and squawks from up the road.

The Master, when fully grown, liked to pretend to be a quiet presence, sneaking and prowling in the dark, but for all he enjoyed being hidden, he loved being in the light most of all.

The spot light, the moon light or the sunlight, as long as he commanded the attention of all those around him he didn’t care what kind of attention it was.

Such a hunger for attention had caused troubles for the Grimm Troupe when the attention was less than pleasant, but in the long march of the Grimm Troupes travel across the land, it suited them just fine to be forgotten in his shadow.

Brum wasn’t one to crave the spotlight or the attention of the bugs who filled the stands. But he couldn’t deny his desire to be heard.

There was just something about knowing that others were hearing him, taking in what he was creating, even if it wasn’t at the forefront of their minds.

And Divine liked to keep her company small, inviting only one or two bugs into her tent at a time, and bleeding their purses dry with her purring voice and odd predictions.

She claimed to be able to predict a bugs fortunes by their smell alone, but Brumm rather thought she could only smell how much money they had on them.

But the bugs walked out of her tent content with her words, and that’s all that truly mattered.

Brumm finally walked into the camp, seeing some of their newer and most likely temporary hires scurry around. They had followed his orders and hadn’t started to unpack, but it appeared as though they had decided that a short meal was in order.

Brumm didn’t fault them for it, traveling was hungry work, and he left them too it to follow the still loud and happy cries of his young Master.

He came upon a scene that had become more and more common.

Divine reclined on the ground, her body soaking up the sunlight and munched upon one of the lower minded bugs that Brumm had seen crawling along the ground. She hadn’t bothered cooking the creature, and so some of its juices dripped from her mouth.

Beside her, tucked into the coil of her large body, was a bundle of red fabric and a shiny orange.

The young Master hovered over the item that laid in Divine’s grasp and made a cacophony of noise at the unmoving thing.

The Master was often quiet when alone, and never quiet with a companion. He didn’t seem to want to waste his words when he was the only audience, but ever since a small egg had suddenly appeared in the young Master’s nest one morning, he was rarely quiet.

The young Master was not quite old enough to speak yet, his mouth not finished growing and still in a shape that made true communication difficult. But that often didn’t stop his attempts at communication. Many things can be communicated through the squawks and trills that could often be heard through the caravan.

But while in the past he would often be quiet enough to be nearly misplaced, now the troupe would hear his trills and nagging squawks continuously.

The little Master was spending every waking breath that he had serenading the egg that Brumm had wrapped in a spare curtain to keep safe.

The tone of his constant noise changed from cajoling to nagging at the drop of an antenna.

It reminded Brumm of the ways that the older siblings who had been put in charge of troublesome younger siblings would lecture the little ones.

Brumm had no idea where the egg had come from or why the young Master was so taken with it. But that wasn’t for him to know. He might as the Master when he was no longer so young, and had been given the time to remember who he was. But for now, Brumm doubted even the young Master knew why he loved the egg so much.

Divine looked up from her meal, swallowing her current mouthful, “Are we to stay a while?” She purred out, her seductive tone a byproduct of either her personality or her accent, Brumm would never know.

Brumm nodded before clarifying, “The villagers are not aggressive, but their currency will not have much worth outside of the area. We will spend what we acquire and move on.”

Divine purred her understanding and went back to her meal, and the young Master dived from his circling flight over the egg to land on his shoulder and coo at him.

Brumm scratched under the young Master’s chin, enjoying the innocence and small size of the bug who he would follow anywhere in the world.

Even when the Master was full grown and at the peak of his power, he would still drop all of his weight upon Brumm’s shell and beg for attention.

At least for now it was only cute when he did it.


	3. A Decaying Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Divine was once someone else, but she has forgotten many of the details.  
> It's for the best really.

There are two ways to join the Grimm troupe.

One way is to be approached by Brumm during one of the Master’s young periods.

To be hired by Brumm, a bug that will never seem more than a long-suffering individual who wears his mask for his job, is to simple travel a road or two with the troupe. To be paid in food, currency, or simply a safer chance on the roads in exchange for labor. To help string up the tent and to take it down, maybe learning a simple craft or two. Brumm is always willing to teach how to play a song, and many of the acts don’t mind teaching a skill or two. Divine herself has taught many bugs the art of misleading others with a few open-ended statements that make it appear as though she had known the answer that they offered all along.

It is a simple thing to be hired by Brumm. For despite the company he keeps, he is a simple bug.

To be hired by the master is something entirely different.

One is a new job, and the other a new life.

Divine had been a queen once.

Well actually, she supposes that she was still a queen.

A more apt statement is that she had once ruled a kingdom.

A kingdom in the Hot Lands where the plants had not had the water to be green and her subjects had consisted entirely of her own children.

She does not remember her kingdom’s, her children’s, or her king’s names. She does not remember their face, their personalities or their pleasures.  
It was the memory of them that she trades to the Nightmare King.

Her memories for a place in his troupe.

She only remembers that they had once existed, and that she loves them still.

To travel with Master Grimm, was to be a slave to the present. To be a part of the circus was to be in his grasp, and to wear a mask was to be willingly his victim. To be eternally sunk into the waking nightmare of his power. To always have the monster chasing after you, and to have your mind feed his fire every night.

Or that is how Master Grimm describes it whenever he offers the deal to the bugs whose empty eyes draw his notice.

He stands over them, his wide mouth just barely open, to give the hint of teeth as he croons at them with his voice as dry as a crackling fire. He makes himself look as much like a monster as he can, an easy feat for the vessel of a nightmare god.

Usually the target of his deal runs from him. The problems that have weighted them down never seem as heavy when faced with a god of fear and fire.

But sometimes, only ever twice in Divine’s remembered time with the troupe, a bug will take him up on his offer. When everything that they had is already burned away and all they can do is wait for death.

To such bugs, forgetting their past is the sweetest temptation that Master Grimm can offer.

Divine knows that it happens slowly, as one cannot forget an entire life in a single night.

It happens not like a fire at all, but like a river eroding the ground, softening the edges of rocks and cutting a path through the dirt.

A bug forgets slowly and over time. Over the distances that they travel, the roads that they walk, the pain that crippled their movements softens and washes away.

Master Grimm is kind, he always offers them an escape when he notices them looking better.

He cannot return what he has taken, but it is simple enough to no longer travel with the troupe. To stop in some small village and begin a new life with new people. To be no longer burdened with the crippling details of their memories, but still retaining the bittersweet moments that bring only a dull pain to remember.

Divine remembers a bug who traveled with them. She had been a widow, and had been gifted the new name Viola by a drunken preteen Master Grimm.

She had been the troupe’s crier, her voice booming over a crowd of bugs to alert a town of their arrival and their shows. She had learned to juggle to add to the shows and had stayed behind in a town when she could no longer recall the fact that she had also once been a mother.

For that is the only way for Master Grimm to help his troupe.

To burn their most painful memories away until they could not even remember what had caused them to travel with the Grimm troupe.

A gentle coo drew Divine’s attention out of her own head and toward where the young master Grimm slept. His small body was curled around the egg that had simply appeared in his tent. Snuggling it in such a way that invoked a faint tickle of a memory in Divine.

Termite Queens do no stay with their eggs long, but she knew that she had seen her own eggs handled with the delicate care and love that young Master Grimm did now.

She just didn’t remember exactly when.

Divine leaned toward the young master, digging claws into the soft ground beneath her as she breathed in deeply over young Master Grimm and his egg.

As always, Grimm smelled of ash, fire, and the sweet smell of soul. But underneath the smell of his godhood, Divine could smell the fresh smell of infant. Of a happy and unstressed child.

And below the stink of youth, Divine could smell the egg.

It smelled of flying things. Of creatures who consumed plants and no meat and laid their eggs on the undersides of the towering green bushes and grass.

But underneath the scent of what it was, there was the lingering smell of what it had been. A smell of sickness and rage, cut through with the scent of spider silk, death, and . . . salt.

Such an odd thing, this egg. The scent of multiple gods on it, but only barely a scent of its own.

It is nothing like when Master Grimm removes his core and gifts it to whomever lit his flame, letting his mortal body burn spectacularly in order to feed the embers of his new life.

Nothing like those harrowing times when the one who lit the flame dies early, so early into the dance that they do not even collect a single flame. Nothing like those times when the young master Grimm is in his egg, and the Old master Grimm still takes the stage, replacing his power with tricks and sleight of hand. Those days when Master Grimm is born slowly, and dies slowly. When the beginning and the end can meet each other for weeks at a time before Brumm inevitable comes from his tent one day with the curled corpse of the old master Grimm in his hands, and the still hand sized young Master Grimm chirring in his fluff.

Master Grimm never remembers those days, at least not from the perspective of his older self.

When he has been plied with enough berry wine or honey mead, he can be convinced to speak of what he does not remember.

He always says that the one who dies is him, but it is a him that he does not share. That he will never remember his death, will never remember dying, not until it is his heart itself that dies in his nightmares.

A gentle touch to Divine’s face knocked her from her thoughts once more.

The young master had awaken, and has met her deeply breathing face with a tap of his own snout.

Divine does her best to focus on the child, to see past the blur that the world always was for her, and was treated with the dark eyes of the young master.

He had half climbed on the egg to reach her face, and was now sniffing her right back, repaying her for her own nosiness.

“Hello young Master. I was just checking on your egg there. It smells of dusted wings and flight, of madness and sickness, but it was once something much grander wasn’t it?”

The young master chirred, whether in agreement, of just to offer the pleasant noise in response to Divine’s own crooning, she did not know.

Her and Brumm could never quite tell how much the young master remembered before he could speak. There were times when they feared that perhaps something had gone wrong this cycle, and others where it was only the lack of a voice that kept the unfired child from taking the center stage of their shows

And then there were times when they all knew that Grimm was faking his forgetfulness in order to milk out more of Brumm’s longsuffering affection and lullabies. A mewling child being one of the very few things that could make Brumm’s deep rumbling voice sing along with his many instruments.

The young Master chirred once more, and rubbed his face along her own, scenting her with fire and ash, claiming her as his own.

Divine cackled, leaning back to her full height.

“So impudent! So rude! What will Brumm think if he comes back to find me smelling of you young one? Why, he will be jealous! It is only fair to treat him twice as well as you treat me. He does have seniority after all!”

The young master trilled and took flight, hovering over her and joining in with her laughter. The little biter always willing to share in a joke.

Divine does not know when she forgot her kingdom’s name, but it is lost to her. She does not remember what caused her, a termite queen, to be here with this traveling circus. She does not remember how she could be here alone, or how she even managed to reach the surface from where she knows she had been safely tucked away behind her castle walls.

A fact of her species is that she was meant to be secreted away, deep in her castle, ruling from behind walls and replenishing her children’s numbers with her own body.

She was meant to die in her castle, and to never see the world around her.

And yet.

Here she was, laying in the sun, surrounded by bugs who were not her children nor her king.

Here she was on the surface, breathing in the smells of things that had only ever been given to her as gifts from her children.

And she has no idea on how she came to be here. What disaster ripped her from her life and made forgetting the best choice she could make.

For one does not follow a nightmare unless they want to burn.

But an end often makes a beginning, and Divine prefers the slow decay of her past over the death of her future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dude, Termite Queens can live for like 20 years, and some of them can live for like 50 years. THat's fucking nuts. Divine has a STORY buried somewhere in her history.


End file.
